Committee for Equity in Surfing (left) informing
Billie-Jean King of potential untruths.
Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing
trains potent ire on World Surf League: “Why are you lying to
Billie-Jean King? Things are NOT equal. The WSL excludes women and
girls!”
By Chas Smith
"Stop spreading untrue information!"
World Surf League executives must certainly
have their stomachs twisted into knots this morning as they woke to
realize the Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing trained its
potent ire on Santa Monica overnight. BeachGrit, as it
were, knows the feeling. One month ago, it was this very tasteless
surf tabloid in the crosshairs after posting a clearly
offensive picture of an older woman longboarding.
Much reflection, soul-searching, was forced afterward. Many
apologies given.
The Committee for Equity in Women’s
Surfing, with a mission of supporting access,
inclusion, equity and equal pay and promises to be “new wave of
professional surfing,” had more work to do, though, and the World
Surf League has, now, been taught a serious lesson.
The trouble began when the WSL’s Senior Vice President
Jessi Miley-Dyer met tennis icon Billie-Jean King,
over the weekend, penning, “I met @billiejeanking last night and it
genuinely made me realize the impact of all of our hard work
because SHE KNEW about surfing, and what we have done for women in
the sport. She even knew details! People who say ‘you shouldn’t
meet your heroes’ are just picking the wrong people to look up to.
Plus, she has three names too which we also talked about.”
Moving, yes?
Apparently no.
In a subsequent post,
Miley-Dyer re-referenced King and the Committee came in guns
blazing.
“Why are you lying to @billiejeanking? ‘Things’ are NOT equal.
The WSL excludes women and girls. Stop discriminating against women
and girls. You are damaging women and girls. Stop spreading untrue
information!”
Ouch.
At time of writing, it is unclear which lies were told and which
“women” and “girls” have been excluded and discriminated against
and also how they have been damaged though I am certain it’ll cause
days of wonder.
Shame WSL.
Deep shame.
Lying to Billie-Jean King, I imagine, a mortal sin.
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"We hold many fears inside us from which
we cannot free ourselves."
Big-wave surfer “groomed, drugged and
sexually abused by a family friend” as a tween finds solace in
riding fifty-foot waves, “Do whatever you like to me. I surrender.
Maybe I will die.”
By Derek Rielly
“Surfing saved me from the dark side of the
night."
The Portuguese big-wave surfer Joana Andrade, a tiny
five-two in Havs, but relentless hunter and slayer of Nazaré
rhinos, is the star of a documentary set for cinema
release called Big vs Small.
It’s a wild story in a sport that has its fair share of ’em.
Andrade was the first woman to tow Naz’s lethal jack-in-the-box
peaks, pre-Maya Gabeira etc, and came to surfing after being
drugged, groomed and sexually abused by a family pal when she was
twelve.
“Surfing saved me from the dark side of the night,” she
says. “We hold many fears
inside us from which we cannot free ourselves.”
The film detours into Andrade’s breath-holding training with
Finnish freediver Johanna Nordblad.
You might’ve already seen Nordblad in the Netflix documentary
“Hold Your Breath, The Ice Dive”where she tries to hit a world
record for distance travelled under the ice-pack with one
breath.
Two epic women sucking air and disappearing into the inky black,
under a ceiling of ice.
A helluva long way from the Ments or the Pacific splendour of
Tahiti.
“Do whatever you like to me,” Andrade say. “I surrender. Maybe I
will die.”
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John John and pal on an earlier voyage to the Line
Islands, a 2500 mile warm-up to his Hawaii-Fiji
crossing.
Hawaiian surf great John John Florence
gives glimpse into wild trans-Pacific crossing in rare interview,
“Lots of wind, lots of wave action…scary moments… Why do I put
myself through this stress? I’m selling the boat…we’re done!”
By Derek Rielly
“My relationship with the boat is love, hate.
Sometimes it's the most amazing thing ever. When something breaks,
it's the worst."
The just-turned thirty-year-old twice world champion
John John Florence has given a rare long-form interview with
Outside magazine concerning his knee injury that forced him to
abdicate from the back end of the tour and his subsequent
three-thousand mile open-ocean crossing from Hawaii to Fiji.
The interviewer is Paddy O’Connell and since I read the
transcript and didn’t listen to the audio version I figured it was
a misspelling and they’d only been granted the interview on the
proviso a Florence Marine X employee, preferably its Chicago born
honey blond president notable for a scrotum that has to be
physically bundled into his underwear, would handle the
questions.
It ain’t, and it gets even more confusing when an Outside editor
called Michael jumps in, asking O’Connell questions before shifting
back to John John.
Still, there are moments.
Highlights.
On surfing with a knee injury and with precious hinge in
brace:
“I almost like those situations because it turns it into like a
challenge in itself. Like, okay, I have to slow down and I have to
think about this a little more and I have to surf the best I can
with what I have. It almost simplifies it in a way, weirdly
enough… It simplifies it, it simplifies the whole mindset
around competing. Because when you have, when, when everything’s
good, you try to find all the negatives and you’re like, oh, I’m
not ready. My board’s not ready. This doesn’t feel right. And then
when something like that happens, everything goes out the window
and you’re just like, I just have to surf a good wave when it comes
in.”
On a three-day hike from the North Shore to
Honolulu,
“We were just like, okay, we’re gonna do this. So we bought all
this backpacking gear and then just picked the absolute worst
weather window. Downpouring sideways rain, as miserable as it gets.
Knee deep mud for three days. Can’t see where you’re walking in the
dark. Just falling over every five feet and just so, so
painful. But just kind of loving it, I guess. At the end of
it, you’re just like, oh my gosh. That was, that was actually
pretty fun.”
On competing v freesurfing,
“I do enjoy the competing and I can really kind of get my mind
there and really get into it. Kind of adjust my surfing towards it.
I feel like, you kind of fall back into the same, habits, routines,
patterns, things like that. I absolutely love the purity of like,
kind of what we call free surfing. I think there’s something
to free surfing that allows a little more expression. You can kind
of let loose a little more and draw a little bit different lines
rather than getting sucked into the same thing. You have so much
time to kind of explore and draw lines in different ways.”
Injury at Pipe,
“I broke my ankle. Then I broke my back. Then I did pretty bad
grade three high ankle sprains on both ankles, kind of back to back
years in a row. Then did MCL tears on both knees back to back. Then
did ACL tears on both knees back to back years with surgeries, with
both ACLS. So that was ACL surgery two years in a row. Not fun.
Don’t do it. And then again, MCLs on my left knee twice since the
ACLS. And I think that’s it so far.
And his trans-Pacific crossing on his forty-eight foot
catamaran with his wife and two pals,
“My relationship with the boat is definitely a love, hate
relationship. Sometimes I’m like, this is the most amazing thing
ever. Look at it. We’re sailing at 15 knots and it’s beautiful and
everything feels great. And then the next moment something breaks
and I’m like, this is the worst. I hate this. I don’t know why
we’re doing this. Why do I put myself through this stress? I’m
selling the boat. When we get to Fiji, I’m selling the boat, we’re
done.”
San Diego area surfers desperate for
glimpse of Brad Pitt despondent as famous first daughter Emily
Ratajkowski spotted making out with New York disc jockey!
By Chas Smith
A heavy blow.
Days ago it was reported, here, that
Emily Ratajkowski had floated a sort of denial that she was
involved with Brad Pitt. The model/actress and world’s sexiest man
had been linked since her split with not-very-attractive husband
though never spotted together. Ratajkowski, anyhow, told the media,
“I’m newly single for basically the first time in my life ever, and
I just feel like I’m kind of enjoying the freedom of not being
super worried about how I’m being perceived.”
Surfers in her hometown of Encinitas, California, immediately
perceived thrown smoke, though, exactly like telling someone
George’s is pumping when D Street actually is, what with the “newly
single” and “kind of enjoying the freedom” and “Brad Spotting”
quickly replaced wearing hats as the favorite pastime of
locals.
Could he be ordering pizza from East Coast?
Might he be at the Taco Stand drinking a Modelo?
Sitting in Swami’s parking lot watching an older man over-wax
his board?
Alas, hearts broke late last night when our famous first
daughter was witnessed making out with a disc jockey and not on the
Pacific Coast Highway but rather New York.
Per Page Six:
Emily Ratajkowski was spotted packing on the PDA with Orazio
Rispo in New York City last Friday night, weeks after sparking
romance rumors with Hollywood hunk Brad Pitt.
The model, 31, and the DJ, 35, were photographed during a
date night in the Big Apple – and the two certainly weren’t shy
about getting intimate in front of the cameras.
Photos show the flirty
pair holding each other close before locking lips on
the sidewalk near a street lined with cars.
Following the steamy makeout session, Rispo passed a helmet
over to Ratajkowski, who hopped on his motorcycle before they
zoomed off together. The model held her new beau close as he drove
her to their next destination.
Even if Emrata did bring Rispo home with her, I’m near certain
no one would care to see him. That time I saw her in Seaside Market
with her then-husband did not impress me at all.
Again, he was real squishy faced.
Not perfect like Pitt.
Sad.
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Slater (pictured) alone in his bathtub.
In vicious slap upside head of Kelly
Slater’s Surf Ranch, Mad Max-inspired Australian Surf Lakes to be
built deep in the heart of Texas!
By Chas Smith
Brutal.
It seems like forever since the world’s greatest
surfer Kelly Slater stole poor little Adriano de Souza’s
thunder and revealed the future of surfing. His perfect manmade
barrel, peeling and reeling on demand, man in tower pushing button
and materializing. Our collective jaws dropped, knowing that it
would be only a matter of time until the prototype, in Lemoore,
would be reproduced in many better places like Palm Springs, Miami,
Oklahoma City, etc.
Except zero have been built.
Oh, the dream ain’t dead, tanks are popping up here and there
but no not one utilizing Slater’s patented plow.
And now, in a vicious slap upside the head, it has been
announced that Mark Occhilupo’s Surf Lake is set be built in
Texas.
Surf Lakes is coming to Austin, Texas. Staying true to the
old saying ‘everything is bigger in Texas’; this freshly inked
project is set to be the biggest surf park development on the
planet.
With a 12-acre Surf Lake at its centre, surrounded by sandy
beach, boardwalks, restaurants, hotels, retail shopping and
residency, the 400 acre ‘Pura Vida’ high adventure community will
be located just south of Austin’s international airport, 20 minutes
from downtown, and 15 minutes from the new $10 billion Tesla
Gigafactory, (which will employ 20,000 people).
With the land secured, along with zoning, water, and
wastewater entitlements, ground-breaking could be as early as
mid-2023. With a Capex of roughly $1.3 billion, Pura Vida is on
track to be the largest integrated wave pool development in the
world.
The land was purchased by local developers seeking to
position a Surf Lake as the centrepiece of their high adventure,
mixed-use retail and residential community. In addition to the Surf
Lakes centrepiece, other high adventure additions will soon be
announced for the Pura Vida community.
Could there be any better fit for a Surf Ranch than Texas?
Imagine the gorgeous cosplay available to World Surf League CEO
Erik Logan. Where do you think “cowboy” ranks on the list of his
childhood dreams?
